Method and apparatus of taking aerial surveys

Abstract

A method of taking an aerial survey maps boundaries of a first image and a second image from a first plane to a second plane to determine boundaries of an output image in the second plane. For a plurality of pixels in the output image, the method determines a corresponding pixel of either the first image or second image in the first plane.

Description

PRIORITY[0001]This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12 / 271,448, filed Nov. 14, 2008, titled “Method and Apparatus of Taking Aerial Surveys” (now U.S. Pat. No. 8,315,477), which claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60 / 987,883, entitled, “Method and Apparatus of Taking Aerial Surveys,” filed on Nov. 14, 2007, and naming Elaine S. Acree as inventor, the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated herein, in their entirety, by reference.TECHNICAL FIELD[0002]The present invention generally relates to an aerial surveying method, and more particularly, the invention relates to an aerial surveying method that combines overlapping video imagery into an overall mosaic using modified 3-D ray tracing and graphics methodologies.BACKGROUND ART[0003]Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) or other manned aircraft can fly over areas of interest and make video images of those areas. Such an aerial surveillance has both military and civilian ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent describes a way to create a single, high-quality image from multiple aerial surveys by merging overlapping imagery data. This process allows for faster and more efficient delivery of useful information to image viewers.

Problems solved by technology

Moreover, photogrammetry can be a labor-intensive task, requiring a human operator to place control points in the images prior to further processing.

All of the aforementioned prior art approaches are computation intensive and require extensive data collection.

Still others attempt to merge the pictures without proper integration; instead, the latest image is glued on top of whatever images came before, thereby, losing all the information from the previous images.

In this case, the adjacent image edges are not blended resulting in a crude paste up appearance.

These traditional mosaicking techniques as discussed above do not provide a method for rapidly merging heavily overlapped imagery data utilizing geo-referencing information, without extensive data collection or computation.

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